The report estimates that the project where the bullet train will run at a speed of over 300 km per hour will cost Rs 98,805 crore.

Comprehensive trials of the proposed air-conditioned coaches for Mumbai's crowded suburban sections are underway since the past couple of years, and the announcement was welcomed by most commuters.

The proposed corridor could be the second largest in the world after China's 2,298 km-long Beijing-Guangzhou line which was launched last year.

Japan has offered to provide financial, technical and operational support to India for introducing its bullet trains, called Shinkansen, on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai route.

A cabinet meeting PM Narendra Modi chaired Wednesday evening allowed 100 per cent foreign equity in areas such as high-speed train systems, suburban railroad networks and dedicated freight projects to be implemented in public-private partnership mode.

In his Railway Budget speech, the minister indicated that most new projects would be done via the public-private partnership model. He also emphasised on exploring alternative sources of resource mobilisation and not depend on fare increases alone.

\"For the bullet train projects, infrastructure upgradation is needed and for this an initial budgetary allowance of Rs 100 crore is proposed,\" Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda said in Parliament.

Having hiked fares to the tune of 14.2 per cent recently, Railway Minister Sadananda Gowda who presented the new government's first budget in Lok Sabha said he plans to leverage railway PSU resources by bringing in their investible funds in infrastructure projects.

Railway Minister DV Sadananda Gowda present his maiden Railway Budget in Parliament. 

Diamond Quadrilateral project envisages connecting major metropolitan cities with high speed trains to reduce the travelling time between cities.

Known as bullet train project, the train is expected to run at 350 km per hour speed reducing the travel time to four hours between the two cities from seven hours by Duronto, the fastest train at present.

Last fortnight, General Motors recalled over 100,000 Cadillac CTS models in the US to fix a problem with the deployment of airbags in these models.